Lola Gillette And The Summer Of Second Chances by Kimberly Behre Kenna (EXCERPT)

Hello, dear readers! I don’t usually do excerpts of Middle Grade books here, so I have a delightful treat for you today with this magic-tinged adventure novel.

The third book in Kimberly Behre Kenna’s Brave Girls series is titled Lola Gillette And The Summer Of Second Chances. Our title heroine is so desperate to complete a Perfect Pairs Collection that she resorts to stealing… and gets caught. Out of frustration, her parents decide to send her to live with her “quirky” Uncle Milo in his ramshackle mansion on the banks of the Connecticut River for a month.

Once there, she becomes even more obsessed with her collection, convinced that if she can acquire a Lucky Baker’s Dozen of pairs, she’ll generate enough magic to avoid going to a boarding school for bad girls like herself. But misadventures with a Zen Garden, a glitchy projector that spits out holographic messages from her dead aunt, a beached houseboat and a displaced wolf soon have her reconsidering her relationship with magic and luck.

As this MG novel was partially inspired by Connecticut actor and inventor William Gillette (who’s perhaps best known for his iconic role as Sherlock Holmes in the early 1900s,) part of the proceeds from the book’s sales will be donated to Gillette Castle State Park.

Read on to get acquainted with Lola, her parents and her uncle!

~~~~~~~

My name is Lola.

I am a thief.

It all started with a pair of Supergirl bobblehead dolls from old man Webber’s Swap Shop. Cheap little plastic things that nobody cared about except me, but I swiped them, didn’t swap. The camera caught me, and the owner tipped off my parents. Their reaction? You’d think I’d robbed Tut’s tomb and twisted history forever. I should’ve waited till I’d earned more babysitting money, but time got short, and the pressure was on.

Anyway, my parents put me in lock-down with my uncle for the month of August. Said we needed a break from each other, and my uncle could use some help. It’s fine. I like my uncle okay. And who knows, maybe I can redeem myself. But can a bad girl really turn good?

***

The drive to 17 Sherlock Lane is classic Mom and Dad.

“Slow down, Theo, or you’ll miss the turn,” Mom says as she grips the sides of her seat.

Dad scowls and accelerates. “Polly, I grew up here, remember?” The tires squeal as he takes a left.

It’s been a while, but as soon as we turn into the driveway and I catch a glimpse of the stone roof nearly touching the top of the tallest tree, it all comes back. Uncle Milo’s house is more of a mansion. It rises up at you like King Kong on a mission, with a creepy factor so high you want to turn around and go home. But soon as you’re at the front steps, the place becomes insanely un-ferocious. Lopsided stones in bulging walls. Turret-type towers droopy as sandcastles in the way of a rising tide. A few windows, too tiny to make a difference. Pretty grim. But the way things are going at home, I’m much better off somewhere else.

***

“Come inside for a bit. It’s been eons since you visited.” My uncle stands at the front door with a tight smile.

And it’s been eons since Uncle Milo mowed the lawn. I brush away the tall, burnt-out grass tickling my bare legs. Lyme Disease is a thing. Even in the city, there are signs posted in parks warning about ticks. I look out over his lawn for insects — crawlers, swarmers, stingers, anything of the itch-inducing variety. I am not a fan of any of them, and they’re impossible to see in this overgrown excuse for a front yard. But something tells me that even though I don’t see any bugs, there are plenty of them hiding, just waiting for the right time to attack.

“No, thanks, Milo. We need to get back. But thanks. Really,” Dad says. He puts his arm around me and gives me a stiff hug. “We’ll call you in a few days, Lola.” He smells like the diner where we stopped for lunch. When the stink of cooking oil gets a grip on you, it doesn’t let up for days no matter how hard you scrub.

Mom drags her eyes away from the broken gutters and mossy roof and lets them land on my uncle’s scuffed-up slip-on shoes. From there, they work their way up to his untucked button-down shirt with raggedy hem, like it’d been caught in the teeth of some machine, and he’d pulled it out at the last minute, right before he was eaten alive.

“Lola, be a help to your uncle,” she says. “Looks like there are plenty of chores that need tending to. Do both of you some good.” Mom shakes her head, as if to erase what she’s seen. “And don’t forget your summer reading. Your new school will hold you accountable.” She tucks my hair behind my ears, looks at me a bit too long, and gets back in the car.

The old VW spins up dust as it darts between dozens of pine trees that line the driveway like soldiers protecting the castle. The only trees I ever see at home are on the green in the city center, with fleets of cars honking and circling around, people looking for parking spaces to do some shopping.

Once Mom and Dad disappear around the bend, it really sinks in. I’ll be spending August on the brink of some new world, an underdeveloped, no-noise, purely natural place that suffers from lack of people. Ugh. Dry as burnt toast.

Inside, Uncle Milo takes my suitcase and sets it down on a shabby pink rug that might’ve been red four hundred years ago. The cool, high-ceilinged room feels so good after standing outside in the sun that I’m willing to ignore the musty smell that has me breathing through my mouth.

My uncle fishes around in his pocket and pulls out a coin. He hands it to me, then points to a stone goldfish pond built into the corner of the living room.

“Um. Okay. Should I make a wish?” I ask.

“Of course.”

I close my eyes and make my wish, open them, then toss it in. It drifts down and lands on a mound of coins of different sizes, shapes, and colors. My coin wobbles at the top of the heap, then tumbles to the bottom.

On its way down, it winked at me.

Or did the sun catch it just right?

~~~~~~~

From Lola Gillette And The Summer Of Second Chances by Kimberly Behre Kenna. Copyright © 2026 by the author and reprinted by permission.

Lola Gillette And The Summer Of Second Chances by Kimberly Behre Kenna was published today March 3 2026 by Willow River Press and is available from all good booksellers, including